In April of 2013, Rachel Teichman moved to Houston and found most bakeries here dominated by traditional desserts like brownies, cupcakes and cookies.
She decided what the city needed was scones and established The Scone Artist, her at-home scone business in the Meyerland area. Thanks to the Texas Cottage Foods Bill update in 2013, Teichman can legally sell scones from her home.
"I wanted to try and think of a product I could sell from home that would work under the restriction, and basically I don't think the scone has been fully explicated yet in a way that some other baked goods have," Teichman says. "I just always like making them; I like giving tea parties and going to tea parties, and a scone is usually the focal point of both."
She describes the scone as a "blank canvas," in fact, that is the name for one of her art and artist-themed treats. Her background in art allows her to combine specific ingredients to not only make each taste good, but also look beautiful.
"I was trying to think of a name," she says. "I went through different names, rhyming names, alliterative names, and my husband and I always go back and forth to how you pronounce scone. Everyone in America says scone, but apparently in Scotland they say scon. The Scone Artist could really be pronounced The Scon Artist as in the Con Artist, so that's where the name came from. And then actually the art idea came because of the name."
Each of her scones are named after an art movement, work of art or artist. The most popular flavors are the Lichtenstein (mini M&M's and brown sugar), the Oldenburg (cheddar cheese, cream cheese, scallions and nutmeg) and pretty much anything with cranberries.
But those are just for starters. There's also the Pop Art scone made of banana, chocolate chips and Pop Rocks, or a Mixed Media variety with your choice of fruit and candy. There's an Abstract scone with fruit jam and sprinkles, and the Surrealism scone, described as a chocolate chip cookie disguised as a scone. Because van Gogh painted sunflowers, his namesake scone includes sunflower seed butter and chocolate sunflower seeds.
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